


take me to the riot

by blackwayfarers



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-15
Updated: 2012-12-15
Packaged: 2017-11-21 04:08:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,594
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/593276
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blackwayfarers/pseuds/blackwayfarers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Louis can feel the morning stiffness fade away as the excitement in his gut starts to get him wild and rowdy, this short trip up to Leeds Fest reminding him that it can't possibly get better than this: a bottle of vodka in his bag, a boy by his side, a tent over his shoulders, and the promise of a truly glorious disaster he has been craving for months.</p>
            </blockquote>





	take me to the riot

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to H, J, and K for their betas. Title comes from the Stars' song of the same name.

They're halfway to Leeds when the sun starts to rise. The dawn catches the very edges of the Pennines in silver, a sloping line on the horizon like a rip down the middle of the night. They're still in the midst of the dales, but as the dull light begins to build, driving under the drizzle of cold rain with the smell of mud and green and diesel as thick as fog, everything is starting to feel like home to Louis. 

Louis' got his bare feet propped up on the dashboard, and he's meant to be following the little Google Maps route on his phone but mostly he's just scrolling through his Twitter feed, exhausted and staying awake to keep Harry company through the long night. He's got his iPod plugged into the car stereo, The Streets filling in the empty spaces with late night beats as the wet stars of streetlights smear in fast lines down the shiny black hood.

"Where next?" Harry says, one hand on the sill of his open window, the other on the steering wheel at twelve o'clock.

"We still on the M52?" Louis asks.

"Yep," Harry says.

"Then stay on the M52," Louis says, rubbing his eyes. 

"But then?"

"The A1, but that's not for miles," Louis says slowly. "Actually. I had an idea."

Harry raises his eyebrows, but doesn't look away from the road. "What idea?"

"Thought we could visit my mum," Louis says, trying to sound off the cuff and casual. "Stay there for the night and head down to Leeds tomorrow instead of setting up early. I know we won't get a great spot but it's raining, it's all going to be mud no matter how early we get there."

Harry's expression doesn't change. "Does your mum know about this idea?"

"I thought we could kind of surprise her," Louis says, shrugging one-shouldered. 

"Louis," Harry intones, though his lips quirk upwards.

"She likes surprises, probably. She never said she didn't like surprises at four in the morning, at least. Besides, you've never stayed at mine before. She always says I should bring you over. She'll be chuffed. She'll love it, probably. Maybe."

Harry considers this, taking a pull from his Red Bull, draining his third can in two hours. Their flight landed in Manchester at two in the morning, and after an hour and a half of filling out paperwork and arguing with the man at the car rental, Harry looks exhausted. He keeps whipping his hair back, a shake like he's trying to wake himself up each time. Lost sleep is smudged in darkness under his eyes, eyes that are rubbed red and bloodshot from the surge of midnight caffeine and the cold wind blowing in his face. He's about as undone as a boy could be, and it makes Louis smile despite himself. "I can't just show up there at dawn with a load of suitcases. I actually want your mum to like me, you know."

"Oh, get off it, she already loves you," Louis says, and he pats the back of Harry's neck. "Look at you, you're wrecked. Think about it. A bed to sleep in. A homecooked meal. You get to make fun of my old bedroom." Louis is quiet for a bit, lets his voice drop sulky and low. "And I haven't seen my mum in a month."

"That's a dirty trick," Harry says, shaking his head, but he's already smiling.

"Go on," Louis says. "My sisters have been dying to see you again."

"This route we're taking," Harry says slowly. "I'm already driving there, aren't I?"

Louis looks out the passenger window, hiding his grin. "I mean, I knew you'd say yes."

"How did you know?" Harry asks.

"Harry," Louis says, squeezing the back of his neck gently, pinching the scruff of skin there, "when don't you do anything I ask?"

Harry's face scrunches up, a tired frown. "I do. Sometimes. Don't I?"

"Remember a week ago when I said, hey, let's go to Leeds Fest, and then you booked plane tickets without even asking anybody first?"

Harry's frown deepens. "That was different. I wanted to go too. I do say no to you."

"I mean," Louis says. "Whatever it takes to make you feel better."

"I do say no," Harry says, winding their way through sleepy little villages, the sodium-yellow lamps catching the rain and throwing up a constellation on the slick pavement. Louis laughs, and looks back at his mobile, tracing his finger down the route towards Doncaster, forty miles. "I'm fairly sure I've said no," Harry says, mostly to himself. "I'm almost certain of it."

*

By the time they stop on the outskirts of Doncaster to get a McDonald's breakfast, the morning has properly started. They drink muddy tea from cardboard cups, eat an order of eight hash browns and two muffins each. Harry pays for it all without even thinking, and when Louis laughs and points it out Harry tightens his lips and doesn't stop frowning until he's into his second hashbrown.

They lean against the bonnet of the car while they eat, Harry with the collar of his green coat snapped up and Louis with his hood up and the drawstrings tied in a bow. The rain has mostly stopped, but the wind is cold and a thick sheet of cloud plasters the sky, gunmetal-grey and flat and stretching out forever, dulling the edges of the world with mist. 

"Proper Yorkshire morning," Louis says, letting his accent come in a bit thicker. Like riding a bike, really. "My fingers are numb and your nose is red and isn't it nice to have a proper mug of builder's tea, huh?"

"Two months ago," Harry said, between bites of his bagel. "You asked me to switch seats on the plane so you could bother Liam and do his crossword over his shoulder and I said no."

Louis laughs. "Because the air hostess told you to sit down while we were taxiing."

"But I didn't switch once we got in the air," Harry says.

"Because I fell asleep on Zayn's shoulder."

Harry frowns, sweetly grumpy as he bites off the corner of a hashbrown. "I did say no, you just weren't listening."

Louis glances at his watch, crumples up his rubbish and tosses it into the bin. "C'mon. Mum will be up by seven. We can go now."

"No," Harry snaps, ketchup at the corners of his mouth, his eyes narrowed in a pathetic little snit. "There."

Louis smiles, slides up next to Harry, petting his hair gently, getting in nice and close to his ear. Louis forces himself not to laugh when Harry nudges into the touch, his eyes fluttering half-closed. "Big warm bed. We can sleep until noon and then mum can make us bacon butties. Watch a film, drink some tea, lie in through the rainy afternoon?" 

Harry tries not to change his expression, just stares straight ahead to the rush of the motorway fizzing on the wet roads, all concrete and metal and mud, the world made dull in the overcast. Louis knows what comes next, he knows how to play this game with Harry; the gift of a warm little room and a bit of sleep and blankets curled up in a nest. Since they first met it had always been more than Harry could resist, even when he's trying so hard to prove a point. "Fine," Harry says from between clenched teeth, his expression solidly unchanging. "Okay."

"What's that?" Louis asks innocently.

"Yes, fine, all right," Harry says sighing but there's a hint of a smile there when he turns away from Louis, digging his keys out of his pocket.

*

They pull up at half seven in the morning, parking neatly next to the Range Rover Louis bought his mum for her birthday. It's the same old house Louis remembers with an automatic smile, neat and tidy with its knee-high white fences and neatly kept gardens and stately red brick exterior. Louis can see movement in the kitchen window, his mum putting on her coffee for the morning and toasting her usual two slices of bread. It fills Louis up with nostalgia, everything suddenly relaxing under a meditative breath.

"Leave the stuff in here for now," Louis says, stretching as he gets out of the car. "Let me have a look at you first." Harry laughs, but he stands up tall in front of Louis. Louis bites on his tongue as he goes about unmaking Harry a bit: ruffling up his hair, rumpling his collar, undoing the two buttons of his polo shirt. The natural mess of Harry, the one his mum ought to know. "There, you look presentable now."

Louis knocks on the front door and stands back, his hands shoved into his jeans pockets and a look of smiling sheepishness.

"It isn't," Jay says, opening the door wide. "I don't believe it."

Louis falls into his mum's arms pretty full-on, a big clenching hug. He wraps his arms around her and breathes into her shoulder, smelling her in shades so familiar it makes his chest tighten up, that mix of fabric softener and sweet tea and, just, _mum_. She holds on for a long time, and he knows she's doing her best not to cry, and it bunches in a knot in Louis' throat as he realises he's trying not to as well. She says some half-things in his ear, all messed up attempts at _Louis_ and _I love you_ and _what are you doing here_. It's like something has been taken away; a heavy shield Louis never remembered putting up, the half-truth of his newly public life, the adopted swagger turning to gawky mischief and sweetness and needing his mum. Louis knows Harry is watching them, but it doesn't seem to matter. When Louis pulls away, Harry's smile is dimpled and Louis has to look away for a second.

"Harry," Jay says warmly, bringing him in for a hug too, rubbing his back. "I wish you'd told me," she says, releasing Harry and looking pointedly at Louis.

"Thought we'd say hello," Louis says, hands back in his pockets.

"I'm sorry –" Harry starts. 

"No, not you, Harry," she says, patting Harry's shoulder as she turns back on Louis. "Drop out of the blue, why don't you?" It's meant to be scolding, but her heart doesn't seem to be in it.

"We're going to Leeds Fest tomorrow," Louis says, and he knows, just from his face, that Harry is loving how sheepish and cowed Louis sounds right now. "We were in the neighbourhood after all. Wanted to come see you."

Jay shoots him a look like, _I see what you're trying to do here_. She smiles, though. "So, you two are here for the night?"

Louis grins uncertainly. "Yes?"

"Right, well, get your bags inside. I wish you'd told me sooner, I could have made up the spare room."

"Mum, we live together," Louis says, catching the keys that Harry tosses at him and opening the boot. "We've been living on a tour bus. We lived for months in a tiny room with three other boys. He doesn't need the spare room."

"You know," Jay says, "I've seen it and all, but I still don't believe you actually own a flat. I mean, you're only twelve, Louis."

Louis goes pink, and Harry is silently laughing at him from over his mum's shoulder. Louis grits his teeth behind a forced smile, and he draws one finger across his throat, which just makes Harry laugh harder.

*

It's the noise of his mum hoovering downstairs that wakes Louis up, in his old bed, in his old room, at one in the afternoon. The thin curtains are drawn over the small window, suffusing the room in pale silvery light, the pattern of the lacy drapes casting leopard spots of shadow up against the walls. Louis is still dressed in his jeans and hoodie, and he's curled up in three different blankets he's half-sharing with Harry, their tug of war ending in a coil of nested afghans and quilts and duvets. Harry sleeps through it easily, his legs wrapped up in the blankets and naked to the waist, mouth open and snoring softly.

Louis' bedroom is exactly how he left it a year ago. The wall of Manchester United and Spider-Man posters; a Top Gear calendar from 2009; pictures of Stan and his sisters and his mum in shabby wooden frames he made in year two; the pinboard stuffed through with a riot of colourful labels from old beer bottles, the rainbow of Absolut vodka flavours like a mosaic of old parties and drunken mistakes (lemon vodka the night he woke up in an airport, green apple when he went skinny dipping in the reservoir on bonfire night); a scatter of ticket stubs and tyvek bracelets from fairs and concerts. The single trophy he managed to wrestle out of the one school he wasn't excluded from (Football, participation) stands on top of a tower of old books, the usual English class fare of _1984_ and _Lord of the Flies_ tucked in with his favourites, _The Count of Monte Cristo_ and _Jeeves and Wooster_. Even his little stuffed lion is there, sitting on top of the bureau.

It's more than just the things, though. All the years before the fame, all the memories of the fuck-ups and riots and crime seem to be plastered up on the walls like film posters, too. Falling into this bed dead drunk, having sex with his girlfriend for the first time, jerking off at three in the morning, vomiting lager and curry into his wastebasket at dawn after a Friday night footie game, accidentally ripping off the door during a party while his mum was away, punching a hole through the wall and getting six stitches for his efforts. Louis didn't know what to expect coming home after nine months, but it wasn't quite this, never thought it would be so heavy on his mind. He thought it might have all been a bit easier to deal with, something to remember fondly and joke about – here's the spot where I first learned to go down on a girl, here's where Stan projectile vomited out the window – instead of having it come back to him like a slap across the face, shocking in how easily he can be made to feel sixteen again. 

"Nice being home?" Harry asks, startling Louis back to him. Harry's eyes are half-opened, looking at Louis from across the pillow. He yawns widely, wiping spit from his mouth with the back of his hand, his lips rosy pink.

Louis manages a little half-smile, wrapped up in his blankets that smell exactly as they did his whole childhood, in a room that's been preserved like an archaeological dig. "It's nice seeing mum. This feels – exactly the same as it used to. It's weird."

Harry nods, a sleepy gesture with his hair in his face, his expression slow and warm. "I know the feeling. Was like that when I went back too. Like you're right back to who you were before."

"But it doesn't really feel like home," Louis says, playing with the frayed hem of a crocheted afghan. "Well, it does, a little. Just, like, an old one." Louis rolls his bottom lip between his teeth for a moment, Harry watching him curiously. "Our place feels more like home to me now, I guess. This feels like visiting a different life." 

Harry nods appreciatively, his lips turning up at the corners. "I thought so too."

They lie like that for another hour, the drone of the hoover downstairs like the hum of a plane's engines. They share the blankets instead of fighting for them this time. Harry pulls out his iPhone and starts looking up the set lists for the three days of Leeds Fest, cross-referencing times and artists they really want to see. Sometimes they need to play a quick game of rock-paper-scissors to decide an outcome (Louis wins The Strokes, Harry wins Elbow) and sometimes it's decided by how long Louis can punch Harry in the same place on his arm before he gives in and they decide to see Panic at the Disco.

Jay pokes her head in just after two. "I thought the hoover might get you up."

"So that's where he gets it," Harry says, locking his phone and sliding it onto Louis' nighttable. He rolls onto his back after that, his head very near Louis', his bare chest rising in a sigh and his skin very pale under the thin light.

"I learned from the very best," Louis says, grinning at his mum. "We're a family who gets their way."

Jay watches them for a moment without saying anything, looking between Harry and Louis as her expression softens. She has the same look on her face when she watches Louis sing, the look she gets right before she ruffles Louis' hair and calls him her beautiful boy and best friend. Her eyes crinkle at the corners, smile shifting down into this sweet little moue. 

"Mum?" Louis asks pointedly into the silence. "Did you want something?"

"Right, Harry," Jay says, blinking and then smiling normally again. "How do you take your tea?"

"Black, please," Harry says, smiling brightly.

"Easy to remember. Still milk and two sugars, Lou?"

"Milk, no sugar," Louis mumbles.

"You're rubbing off on him," Jay says to Harry, with what Louis thinks is a rather mean laugh, actually. "I used to have to talk him down from four sugars." She closes the door when she leaves.

The silence is agony. "Don't –" Louis says.

"The sheer amount of _shit_ you give Liam for putting sugar in his tea –"

Louis closes his eyes and pinches the bridge of his nose. "Really, don't. I knew this would happen."

"I put one – one! – teaspoon of sugar in my tea and you said I ruined it and poured it into my cereal," Harry says, turning on his side to look at Louis, his smile disbelieving, his eyes wide and vicious. "You are the most unbelievable –"

"– I was young!"

"– terrible, dozy, feckless –" Harry continues, edging towards Louis in the bed, his hands creeping up along the comforter and sliding towards Louis' ribs. "I'm going to tell _everyone_."

"Don't you –" Louis says, and the rest is shouting laughter as Harry jumps on top of him and scrabbles at his ribs, poking his fingers with deadly aim into the spots on Louis' sides that Harry fucking _swore_ he would never use for evil.

*

Dragging the blankets from the bedroom, Harry and Louis set themselves up on the living room couch, burying themselves under a mountain of cushions and duvets. The rain is coming down pretty hard now, the day so thick with clouds they need to flick on the table-side lamps, the warm light giving the house this cocooned and isolated feel, like they've been shut in by a blizzard. Harry ends up lying between Louis' legs, resting his head on Louis' chest, but who can tell under all the covers, their two bedheads poking out of the sea of mismatched colours. They find _Dr. No_ on TV, and sip their steaming tea, Harry making eyebrows and elbowing Louis in the stomach when Ursula Andress walks out of the sea like Venus from the half-shell.

Mid-way through, Harry rolls off of Louis, digging his way out of their mess. Standing tall, Harry yawns and his shirt rides up, revealing his navel, the elastic of his briefs low on the shadowed ridges of his hips. Louis stretches and pokes his stomach; Harry _oomphs_ appropriately and grins.

"Hungry?" Jay asks, looking up from her book and cup of coffee as Harry walks into the adjoining kitchen.

"A little," Harry says. "If you show me the bread I'll just make myself some toast."

"We've got roast beef in the fridge, I could make you something. Go, sit," Louis hears his mum say, the scrape as she slides her chair out. 

"We could make it together?" Harry says, and Louis knows the exact smile Harry is giving, that one he reserves to make people melt, the one that makes him strangers' favourites.

"Oh, you're very good at that," Jay says, her laugh bright and high, and Louis is incredibly proud of his mum in that moment. "Very well done. A ten for execution, really."

Louis half-watches the movie, most of his attention focused on Harry and his mum working in the kitchen. They laugh and joke comfortably, their talk mingling with the BBC broadcast they've got playing quietly on the radio. Louis hears his name come up a few times, old stories that make Harry laugh outrageously, and new ones that make his mum _tsk_ and chuckle. Louis lies there, sleepy and warm and buzzing, his grin an unshakeable thing, a deeply private and pressing grin that he buries in his blankets as they talk about him, Louis listening to himself being loved in voices bruised with fondness and laughter. He curls his toes and, not for the first time, wants this moment to linger as long as it can, to stretch out for hours just like this, the best threads of his life knitting together tight and warm. 

Harry comes back with a plate of roast beef sandwiches and sliced tomato and baby carrots, which earns him a punch right in the thigh. Harry crawls back into their molehill of fleece and cotton, lying back in Louis' lap with the plate balanced on his chest. Harry arches his head back, the full swath of his throat pale and marked by freckles like spattered ink, and he gives Louis this scrunchy little smile, all pleased and teasing. That earns him a gentle slap, and then a harder one.

"Louis," Jay intones from the kitchen. "Be nice."

"She used to like me best," Louis mutters, which only makes Harry grin wider.

*

Just before dinnertime, as the movie is ending, Jay excuses herself to go pick up the twins from a friend's house. Jay keeps Louis' visit a surprise, and it's only when Daisy and Phoebe walk inside and see Louis sitting on the couch with Harry that they find out. Their screams are a perfect high C as they crawl over the back of the furniture and fall around Louis, hugging him from either side. Jay laughs and starts to make dinner, humming to herself, and Louis puts his arms around the both of them, his twin sisters mirroring each other as they bury their faces into the crooks of Louis' shoulders.

Harry changes seats, moves to the armchair across the room, sitting there cross-legged and pretending to watch the news while glancing over at Louis every now and then, flashing him a laughing smile

Dinner is loud and full and familiar, the way it used to be, big shared dishes that they spoon for themselves, Louis resisting the urge to start flinging balls of creamed spinach across the table. Lottie and Fizzie come in just as dinner is served, welcoming Louis with quieter hugs and happy little pokes in his sides as they come in from the rain, bringing with them the smell of rain and grass cuttings and wild and muddy weather that gets shut out behind them, tucked back into their little nest of copper lamplight and rain pouring against the windows.

Harry sits next to Louis at the table, a quick pat on his thigh hello as Harry's eyes light up in the way Louis knows means he's really enjoying himself. It's amazing how quickly Harry fits into their rhythm, Louis' family opening ranks just a bit to make a spot for him, adopting Harry easily as one of their own. Harry works himself seamlessly into the conversation, keeping up with the jokes and even taking a few jabs at Louis of his own. If Louis wasn't feeling so warm and full he would hit him, instead he just laughs with the rest of them, eats his shepherd's pie, and wills the hours to slow down again, just a little bit.

They get an early night, turning in at ten o'clock. Louis insists on it, which makes Jay touch his forehead with a look of mock concern. Louis rolls his eyes as he kisses her cheek goodnight, Harry giving her a brief hug too. After a barrage of sisters, of good nights and hugs and promises to see them again soon, Louis and Harry make it through the family and into Louis' room, closing the door behind them, the both of them suddenly swallowed into silence and darkness.

"Well, you survived," Louis says.

Harry pulls off his t-shirt, tosses it on the floor. "Your family are really lovely. I mean, I say that every time I see them. But they really are."

"I know," Louis says. "Loud and ridiculous. You fit right in." He starts to dig through his dresser, finds some old pyjama bottoms of brushed blue cotton and he changes into them quickly. When he turns around, Harry has his back to him and he's studying Louis' pinboard curiously. His hand just brushes over the vodka labels, rippling and shining under his fingers. "Stan calls that the Wall of Pain," Louis explains.

"These are all yours?" Harry says quietly, rifling through the different coloured Absoluts like a flipbook.

"Yeah," Louis says on a breath. "Stan has his labels in his room. It was our thing."

"There's a lot of them," Harry says, his voice studiously even.

Louis crawls into his bed and lies on his back, his hands behind his head. "I guess so." Louis pauses on that. He knows the questions Harry is very deliberately not asking, the way he's still trying to piece together the old picture of Louis' life from the bits he's begun collecting like butterflies pinned in a glass case. There are a lot of vodka labels, and a lot of drunken nights strung together and filled with heat and wildness and uncertainty, skiving off school with a flask and a handful of friends and trying to figure shit out that refused to be found. Harry stands there, like he's counting each one, and suddenly Louis really wishes he wouldn't. "It was a mad couple of years. Just a strange time, I guess."

Harry nods slowly, and he finally turns away from the corkboard. He looks at Louis calmly, a smile propped up in the corner of his mouth. "I like seeing you with your family," he says finally, dropping the unasked questions as he flicks open the button of his jeans, stepping out of them. He slides in bed next to Louis, flinging an arm out to rub Louis' stomach lazily. "They make you seem all little and young. I like it."

"I'm not little," Louis says, scooting over to give Harry some room.

"They're almost as tall as you," Harry says.

"Fuck, they are, aren't they?" Louis says under his breath.

"When do you want to get up tomorrow?" Harry asks. He curls over in bed, his back to Louis, but his legs kick under the blankets and tangling against Louis' own. Cold bare feet, ice really, and Louis traps them between his own. Harry takes his phone from the nighttable and queues up his alarms. 

"Six, I guess?" Louis says.

"All right," Harry says.

"You ought to come over more often," Louis murmurs, thinking of the way his family so simply shifted and changed and took Harry in, as familiar as breathing. It all felt so easy, this whole day, like it could happen and again and again without even trying.

"I'd like that," Harry says.

"Me too," Louis says quietly. "Nice having another boy around the house."

*

Harry sleeps and Louis doesn't. He stays up, buzzing and awake and too alive for sleep, and he stares up at his bedroom ceiling and imagines the starlight blocked by shingles and plaster, counting Harry's slow breaths like sheep.

Louis can feel himself get drawn back into his old life with hot gravity, his body all of sixteen again and the fidgeting mess of who he used to be. The strangest thing is Harry, Harry is sleeping next to him in his old bed under the shadows of his old life, and it feels so different than it ever has before. It's not the easy sleep they got used to on tour, passing out on each other in a tangle of easy limbs that starts a passive little joke with their minders about cuddle buddies, people laughing fondly at them as they bundled themselves under blankets in cold greenrooms around the world. This is another beast entirely.

There's a tugging weight here, these strange and violent feelings in the hollows of Louis' chest, a sharp and sudden want for _more_. It feels like something so different, this night right here, like an answer to an old nagging question Louis kept forgetting to ask himself. Louis' always known what it's like to love Harry, but right now it almost doesn't seem like it's enough. Harry is up all close to him right now, sleeping and calm, a fucked up mess of curls, his naked chest and it's on a sudden pang of fear that Louis realises that he wants, no, fuck it, _needs_ to keep Harry in his life. Needs Harry to saturate it, stupid little trips to the grocer's and drunken nights and Christmas dinners, just more and more of this boy he knows he loves like a bonfire. He just – he needs it.

Sometime during the night, Harry rolls over in dreams, folds up close to Louis. His right arm curls over Louis' bare stomach, and holds him loosely. Louis sucks in a tight breath, lets it go, and Harry is still there.

Okay.

*

There's a pot of coffee brewing when Harry and Louis come downstairs the next morning. It's not yet dawn, but Louis' mum is there in her bathrobe and bare feet, making them eggs on toast and listening to the quiet drone of the radio. No one talks much, and Louis keeps nodding off, almost smashing his head into the kitchen table. Harry pets Louis' mussed hair, sleepy and fond.

Louis hugs his mum goodbye, and Harry does too. She touches Louis' face and gives him a kiss on his cheek. A look passes through her eyes right then, the same one from the day before, that inner glow of pride that seems to radiate from nowhere and for no reason. Louis sees the same look again when she hugs Harry goodbye. 

The drive up to Leeds is quiet. They watch the world wake up together, streetlights flickering out as the sun starts to rise behind the clouds, early morning commuters sparse on the road, the sleepy traffic making its way downtown. The rain stopped sometime last night, but the roads are still shiny with wet, a fine mist clouding up around them. They listen to Coldplay, _Parachutes_ on Harry's demand, and they laugh when they accidentally harmonize together about how it was all yellow.

"You ready for this?" Harry says, studying the road carefully as he merges under the sign pointing the way to Leeds.

"I am electric," Louis says, pronouncing the words sharp and bright. He tilts back his seat, kicks his feet up on the dashboard, and grins over at Harry. "We're going to get so fucked up, aren't we?"

Harry laughs, and his smile is a little mad. Leaving home, as much as Louis loves his mum, still feels as sneaky and delinquent and beautiful as it ever did, being left on his own like a permission to do bad things. The day comes alive then, windows cranked down and Louis switching to the Black Keys and blaring them loud, the both of them shaking off sleep and cozy homes like wet dogs as they drive north to ruin. The sticky feeling of being sixteen is still itching in Louis' mind, and it makes the world seem violent with noise and colour and rich, vicious potential. Louis slaps Harry's thigh, hard, and receives the sharp shout of laughter and pain he wanted to hear. 

When the clouds break halfway towards Leeds, everything actually does go all fucking yellow.

*

Leeds Fest is a glorious mess when they arrive, only half eight in the morning but the traffic to the field is unmoving, people already yelling and shouting as they walk towards the stage, arms swinging with bottles of beer and joints lit up, the air through their rolled down windows already rich and salty with weed and mud.

Harry finds a parking spot fifteen minutes from the stage. Lugging their tent and bags out of the back, they make the pilgrimage with about thirty other people, all of them in scarves and sunglasses and dirty plaid. It's overcast but Harry wears his sunglasses and his wellies, and he can't resist jumping in the puddles as they walk on. Twice Louis almost shoves him in one, but Harry gains his footing and laughs a loud bark, shoving Louis back. 

No one recognizes them really, but then they're not the rockstars here. They're just the crowd, just lads really, only a part of the danger. They're surrounded by laughter, and early morning cigarettes, girls with dreadlocks and neck tattoos riding their boyfriends in a piggyback up to the fields. There's this rogue feel to it all, a commune, a gathering of dirty artists and wayward young losers like them. They're the kind of people Harry fits in with so quickly, the kind of people that Louis wants to share drinks with and become best friends for a single night. 

Louis can already feel himself drawn in to the crowd, drawn into Harry with his fucking headphones around his neck, drawn to Harry in a way he never has before. It's so much more than just sharing a private weekend with him, it's sharing a chance to take a bite out of the world. Louis can feel the morning stiffness fade away as the excitement in his gut starts to get him wild and rowdy, this short trip up north reminding him how it is to be fucking offensive again. And it can't possibly get better than this because there's a bottle of vodka in his bag, a boy by his side, a tent over his shoulders, and they're marching towards the kind of glorious disaster Louis has been craving for months. 

Louis jumps up on Harry's shoulders, a crazy angle with his knapsack there, just a glancing blow as they both stumble away. Louis can feel himself turn on, absolutely everywhere, his blood flowing hot and loud in his ears. He needs to get it out somehow– he punches Harry in the shoulder, getting high on it like everyone else. It might be too early for it but the whole world seems to be buzzing, quaking with them and the distant noise of crowds waking up to beer for breakfast.

Harry has this grin that he can't wipe off his face, obviously feeling the same hum of the world as Louis. "You ever thought we would –"

"No way," Louis says, doesn't even need to hear the rest, knows exactly what Harry means. "It's wild, man. It's mad. Why did anyone ever let us do this? How did they think this would be a good idea?"

Harry laughs, his grin gone wicked. "I mean, we ought to make a pact now, shouldn't we?"

Louis raises his eyebrows, hoisting his gear up on his shoulders again. "What kind?"

"Say yes to everything," Harry says, the new sun freed from the clouds glinting in gold on his aviators. "Do what we want. Squeeze out every drop of this weekend. Remember it when we're old and think of how great we used to be."

"Used to be?" Louis says, squeezing the back of Harry's neck, the both of them matching the quick march-step of the other concert-goers and their triumphal entry into Jerusalem, smoke and vomit and punk.

"Agreed, then?" Harry asks. Louis has seen Harry delighted about a lot of things, but none of it matches how Harry looks now, this mad freedom like he's got three days left to live and he intends to enjoy every second of it. His hair is a sweep of schoolboy curls, the new sun drawing freckles out of his skin, his hand slinking around Louis' waist, and he's exactly the kind of person you'd want to ruin things with. 

"Agreed," Louis says, wrenching his arm around Harry's neck, knocking their heads together gently. "We going to burn it down, babe?"

Harry laughs. His lips are flushed and his sunglasses have slid down his nose and he grins hugely at Louis, a grin like Bonnie might have given Clyde. "To the ground, Louis."

*

They start drinking before they even try to set up their tent, already a good _fuck it_ worth of vodka and Red Bull in their old coffee cups, the dregs making everything taste bitter and burnt. Louis has the assembly instructions in one hand and his drink in the other, acting foreman as Harry wrestles with the metal skeleton of the frame, poles spilling out of his hands and crashing on the ground.

"It's all colour-coded, see," Louis says lazily, pushing the sunglasses he stole from Harry up the bridge of his nose. "Red pole into red flap, yellow into yellow. It's not that hard."

"Come and – help, then," Harry says, struggling to find the corresponding pieces, already one drink in before it hits ten in the morning. He manages to track down two blue pieces that he slides together, shooting a triumphant grin at Louis.

Louis sips his drink, a giddy little breakfast buzz that sharpens his smirk. "Well done, love. You know your colours."

As Harry slides the pole into the flap he manages to tear a nice long gash into the nylon tent, spearing the pole through the canvas. "Don't," Harry whispers, keeping his back to Louis.

Louis takes another sip of his drink. "Colours and shapes yes, but the motor skills need work. We're going to have to hold you back a year –"

"Shut it –"

"Didn't mean burn it to the ground literally," Louis says.

"You're loving this, aren't you?"

Louis laughs, draining his vodka and Red Bull and old coffee. "I really, really am."

Harry stands up from his crouch, pushes back his tangle of hair and takes his cup from the holder of his fold-up chair, drinking it down in one and staring at the mess of a half-tent he's got started. "Why am I the only one building this?"

"Hey, it was your thing," Louis intones, taking Harry's empty cup from him and filling it with a half-inch of vodka and a splash of Red Bull, putting back into his waiting hand. "Say yes to everything, say yes to every adventure. So, there you go, Harry. Build a tent. Say yes to this adventure. Squeeze the juice out of life, but come on, man, you've got fourteen more steps and I'm getting hungry."

"How did I get like this," Harry says, going back to the pile of poles on the ground, now slick with cold mud, "when did you do this to me?"

"What did _I_ do?" Louis says, saccharine sweet.

Harry pauses for a moment, thinking it over and scrunching up his face and hissing out a sigh. "What's the next step, then?"

Louis smiles. "Put some poles together and build me a tent, man."

*

They have a muddy little plot towards the edges of the field, far from the stages but fairly private. Everyone who got here the night before is spending the morning sleeping off their hangovers or soaking up the booze with fried food while the latecomers struggle with their tents. A dozen different radios play a dozen different songs, a frantic mash-up of MGMT and Arcade Fire and Bloc Party, the occasional burst of laughter or shouting breaking through, the air ringing with a growing buzz as the sun creeps higher in the sky.

Harry finishes the tent, more or less, by eleven. It's a rickety little thing, a pyramid of nylon and metal poles, but it's theirs. They stuff it with their knapsacks and sleeping bags, a couple of bottles of vodka, some survival packets of crisps and sweets, barely enough room left for two people to stretch out comfortably. The canvas filters the light furiously red inside, flaming on Harry's skin like a klaxon, turning his hair copper and his grin devilish. 

"Good?" Harry asks, unrolling his sleeping bag next to Louis', propping up his rucksack for a makeshift pillow. 

Louis kneels on his own sleeping bag, his hands on his hips as that burst of joyful panic careening against his chest again. There's a lot of stuff Louis suddenly wants to say, a lot of dumb and sincere things Liam would say about building a little nest away from home, a glowing red cave made up by Harry's big hands from metal and fabric, and what it means to share this weekend like a cigarette, passed back and forth between dirty fingers and dry lips. Instead, it all comes out in a laugh and Louis pushes Harry roughly to the ground, grinning down at him and pinching his cheeks fondly.

"Food?" Harry says, his grin getting tugged wider as Louis pulls at his cheeks.

The crowds and queues are long, winding out like veins from the nerve center of the concert, cluttered under the rising cloud of cigarette and weed smoke that hangs like a fug in the air. They follow the noise like breadcrumbs, and Louis shakes Harry by the shoulders as they wander towards an early lunch. 

"All right, Lou?" Harry asks, that same grin that can't even be slapped from his face.

"It's crazy," Louis says. "I keep trying to force myself to slow down so I can remember everything, I wanna remember everything like a picture. You with that stupid jacket I'm going to steal when I get cold, those fit girls over there, the way everything smells, how my cheeks fucking hurt already."

Harry rolls his bracelet around his wrist, licks his upper lip like he's tasting the air. There's something like ozone in the wind, that sharp tang before lightning hits. "And I want to remember you like this," Harry says, shoving his shoulder, "you're like a child dizzy on lemonade."

The vodka is already coursing through Louis like liquid light, burning him up from the inside. And there are these fucking fabulous waves of cheers coming off the stage as the set-up begins and the lonely twangs of guitar being tuned are launched over the fields. Everything just seems to glow, it really does, and Louis grabs Harry in a hug around his back, needs to share at least some of his own shouting heart. The both of them stagger awkwardly from side to side as they walk, tied together, unwilling to break apart as they make their way to the backs of the lines for a nearby chippie. Louis' never loved being an ordinary stupid teenage fuck more than right now, hearing Harry laugh, hearing the howls of the crowd like a wolf finding his pack.

Lunch is lager and haddock and chips and more lager, wandering around the festival, flitting from stage to stage and watching as roadies set up the equipment for the first acts of the day. Tall pillars of speakers flank each side of the stage, the spider's web of scaffolding in heavy iron triangles and rigging, the hum of an amp being tested. It's funny seeing it from this side, a stage being set up that he isn't expected to sing on, Louis and Harry just blending into the background to watch people prep drum-kits, a rack of guitars in six different colours, piercing feedback slicing through the air as pedals get taped down under mic stands.

And then they get more beer, one in each raised hand as they weave through the crowd, their minds fuzzy and their boots squelching in mud, the two of them swallowed up in the crowd as the first band starts to play.

*

Early in the evening, with the sun crashing down and bleeding out pink and orange and Interpol pounding out the kind of music that starts avalanches, Louis gets handed the first joint he's smoked in a year. He's been dancing near a tall boy for the last hour, and after some bumped shoulders that turn to laughter and lazy handslaps and a minute of trying to yell their names over the noise, he gets passed a neatly rolled joint, ember already burning hot, and a hearty slap on the back.

The guy's name is Kasun, and he's got an LA Kings snapback, a white satin jacket with a yellow scorpion embroidered on the back, and a curling skull and flowers tattoo that crawls up his neck from under his collar. He can't be older than twenty, thin and tall, stoned and friendly. He doesn't know who Louis is, or at least he doesn't care. It's that weird kind of music thing that Louis loves best, half-drunk and immediate best friends with everyone just because you're sharing the same exact moment, the same feeling clenched in your chest, just pumping to the music and sweating even though it's getting cold. Careful joints traded back and forth, clouds of smoke in the air.

Louis has a finger linked in Harry's belt loop, and he pulls him near to share the smoke. He ends up with one arm around Harry's waist and the other around Kasun's shoulders. They both watch with a grin as Louis takes his first drag. It fills his mouth, tasting of dirt and tar and metal. Quick little hits and he keeps it tight in his lungs, letting it go in a thin stream only when he's gasping for a breath.

_Good?_ Kasun mouths, buried by the music.

Louis nods and passes it back to him. Kasun takes a neat little breath of smoke, puffs it out in shaky rings, and leans over Louis to hand it to Harry. 

Harry takes the joint and looks from it to Louis, a look of confusion, _who is he?_ , and Louis just shrugs and grins. Harry looks doubtfully at the joint and back to Louis, raising his eyebrows like one final question. 

_He's cool_ , Louis pantomimes very deliberately so Harry can lipread. Louis jerks his head at Harry, a nodding _go on, then_ , the flash of a wink.

Harry shrugs, corner of his mouth tilted up in a smirk. He takes a long drag, the ruby coal lighting up his face in orange, and then he blows out a smooth stream of smoke towards Louis. It smells rank, it smells great, it smells like old summer nights and stumbling parties that go on until dawn. It smells like it used to, and it smells like right now. 

Louis leans forward and Harry tucks the joint between Louis' open lips. Louis takes another long drag, breathing it out, and few short hits. He smokes it and shares it with Kasun and Harry down to the nub, until the sparks stick to the backs of his eyes and the earth starts to slip-slide the other way around the sun and Louis keeps his hand tight around Harry's waist to stop from falling away.

*

It's just Harry and Louis, arms around waists, tucked up neat in the crowd when Elbow takes the stage. The high really hits Louis then, gets into him fully, slowing down the minutes like Louis so desperately wants. It does all the things it's supposed to, and Louis just exhales and closes his eyes and feels it run through him. It turns the air into honey, and shifts the music from sound to shapes and colours bright like when you rub your eyes too hard. Everything seems to be turned up, louder, sharper. Louis can feel every one of Harry's fingers pressing into his side, the way he drums his thumb against Louis' hip in time to the rhythm, the way he flicks his hair back and how the stage lights – purple and white – catch him.

A familiar song starts up and Louis laughs, shaking Harry at his side. "It's the one Liam loves. When you play it in the car he gets all dreamy-eyed. It's that one," he says, and he knows Harry probably can't hear him.

Harry presses his mouth to Louis' ear. "It's the one Liam loves."

Louis laughs again, slow and pleased and high. He digs his phone out of his pocket with his free hand and dials Liam's mobile. 

"Hey," Liam says, and Louis can barely hear him, even with the phone pressed right onto his ear. "Louis?"

"It's that one!" Louis shouts into the receiver.

Louis can just hear Liam laugh. "I can barely hear you, Louis."

"Wait, just, listen," Louis says.

"Are you drunk?"

"Very!" Louis says. He raises his phone in the air. The screen is bright, a modern day lighter, and he holds it up as high as he can. Harry laughs and tucks his head into Louis' shoulder. They stand there swaying, holding up the mobile, the music blasting over them, Harry giggling and riding his high like a kid, leaning into Louis' shoulder to laugh against his skin, his eyes squinting perfectly, his hair a mess, his mouth on Louis' throat.

Louis holds the phone up for the whole song, his arm getting sore and people bumping into him and Harry almost totally unable to peel himself away, propped up against Louis' side and laughing until his cheeks are wet.

At the end of the song, Louis yells into the phone, Liam laughing on the other end. "That's the one you like, right?"

"Yeah!" Liam says brightly. "Having a good time?"

"Fucking perfect, man."

"Aw, good," Liam says, and Louis can just picture his stupid little smile, that sweetly condescending tone he gets when he's dealing with Louis when he's drunk. Liam had seemed genuinely delighted when Harry announced their plans to go to Leeds Fest, patting Louis on the back, telling him to go for it, that he deserves – needs – the time off. He doesn't quiet catch what Liam says next, but he hears the end: "and tell Harry I say hi."

"I love him," Louis yells, poking Harry in the side to get his attention. He's just saying it, and he knows it's true, so he just says it again. "I really love him."

"I know you do," Liam says fondly, almost lost in the rush of the crowd's applause. "Oh, I know you do, Louis."

"I love you, too."

Liam laughs again. "Drink lots of water, Lou. Eat some chips before bed."

"You didn't say it back."

"I love you too," Liam says. "The song was lovely. I miss you, by the way."

"Fucking better," Louis says. "Night, Liam."

"Sleep well, rockstar."

"What'd he say?" Harry asks as Louis pockets his phone again.

"He says he knows," Louis yells as the next song starts. "I said I really love you a lot and he said he knows I do. I really do, too." Louis laughs at himself, the tangle of words, how he wants to feel this stupid forever. It's not like drifting away or being detached, getting this blitzed, it's more like getting stuck in everything like rope and yarn, getting tangled in the things you thought you had all sorted out into neat little piles. It's like tripping over all the awkward and true bits of yourself, fucking up your neatly organized life, and laughing because what else are you supposed to do. "He also said hi."

Harry grins, such a big and wide open grin, and he tucks Louis in nearer to his side. "What a dickhead," Harry says, and Louis cracks up.

"You didn't say it back," Louis says, still laughing, thumping Harry hard in the ribs.

"Do I ever need to?" Harry says, squeezing Louis' shoulder again. "Don't you always know?"

*

The night shifts and shivers, beats loud enough to resonate in the hollows of Louis' chest, a half moon breaking through the clouds. Louis is still so fucked up, on weed and booze and especially music, and his body is taut and humming like a piano wire. He has an arm thrown around Harry's shoulders, the other around a stranger he crashes into, laughing and bumping fists and loving each other for a minute. Louis catches the night in a very wide net, taking sips from strangers' flasks, smoking the ends of other peoples' cigarettes, finding his own way to be truly out of his mind. A new joint burned down to the end, his fingertips singed, a great cloud of smoke rising over his head.

The time is long and loud, and Louis is drawn back into the crowd, taking Harry by hand. The night might be cold, but he's a fucking furnace, burning like a bonfire. Louis pulls off his shirt, and it's lost almost immediately, torn away from his hand until he's barechested, jumping with the crowd. For the first time in years, it's totally too much, perfectly too much. 

Harry is there like a wingman, following him on every step, shot for shot and cigarette for cigarette. He lets Louis peel off his shirt even though it's too cold, holding his arms up to let it happen. He closes in next to Louis obediently, trapping his bare arms around Louis' waist like he has the entire night, relinking their chain and dragging him to bounce together into the next song.

"Don't lose me," is all Harry says after all that. His hips are shadowed, his chest sweat-slick and lit up in the blues and reds of the stage, his smile ecstatic. "Can't lose you."

"Naw," Louis says. The electricity is still vibrant, tingling along his arms and legs. So he doesn't.

*

They leave near the end of Muse's set, when Harry laughs so hard he falls over and knocks a guy's beer out of his hand. It turns out the guy is kind of an asshole, and instead of getting the hilarious joke and becoming best friends, he shoves Harry, hard. Louis aims a punch and misses wildly, knocking someone else's beer out of their hand. Louis just laughs, sorry these guys don't _get_ their amazing joke, so he grabs Harry's hand and pulls him out of the crowd, laughing as Harry loses a boot and Louis has to help him hobble along towards the tents like he's broken a foot.

It takes three fucking attempts to find their tent, wandering down the wrong lanes, stumbling past campfire circles of people smoking and sharing beer. They're both shirtless, and Harry has one bare, muddy foot, and they almost crash into a dozen different tents as they slip between the ranks, trying to find their little red nest.

Finally, just as the crowd roars for the end of Muse's set, they find their place. Harry unzips the flap and they crawl inside, kicking off whatever boots they have left and stumbling inside. They didn't bring any torches, but there are a bunch of campfires burning around them, a warm bronze glow that fills everything up in shadows and highlights, catching Harry's curls and the breadth of his shoulders and the lines of his chest and collar bones and hips. Red light, copper light, golden light, filling them up warm.

"Just, thinking about it, Interpol, Lou," Harry says, his voice raspy with cigarettes he doesn't normally smoke, this heavy and sparkling awe in his tone. "Elbow. I mean. Those are the guys. That's the stuff I want in my life. That's the – that's music, Lou. It's all I want, it's stuff I want to see with you forever."

"We could probably outsell 'em both," Louis says, and Harry looks over at him and laughs hugely. "Combined, probably."

"S'unreal," Harry slurs, wriggling on his sleeping bag, his head on his rucksack. "This was. An amazing idea."

"Of course it was," Louis says, falling next to Harry, tucking his hands behind his head as his elbow knocks against Harry's shoulder. 

"I can't tell if I'm – drunk or caned or what," Harry says, his eyes closed and his voice whiskey dark and low. He squints open one eye to glance at Louis. "I'm in some – some good mix where everything is just all – smudged around the edges and warm and great and, did you – did you really almost punch someone?"

"I reckon I did," Louis says. "I think I missed. Yeah, I missed."

"Should get Liam to teach you proper – how to properly. How to do it."

It's the proximity thing again, being next to Harry in bed, how being this near makes Louis start to think about Harry in soft ways, in closed doors and fucked up ways; his body and his grin and his life right now twined with Louis' own like laced fingers. It's not the alcohol, Louis knows it isn't just the alcohol, because all the endless shots of vodka and hits off a spliff do is amplify that heavy, beating, wanting thing in his chest. It's a different bed this time, musty old sleeping bags they nicked off their parents, a tent on the cold ground, but almost the same exact feeling as he had last night and a lot of the nights before, this little kindling something growing over weeks to the bonfire between his ribs. He turns to look at Harry, and Harry smiles sleepily back, and it's the proximity thing again; being close, being really close, and wanting to be closer. All the alcohol does is give Louis permission, and so he wriggles over.

They're both breathing heavily, and watching each other from across their makeshift pillows, stuck to the solid ground while the dozen shots and three shared joints spin the world in a havoc around them, unfocused and bare-chested with their cheeks burning hot and their feet as cold as snow, trying to catch breath that won't come. Harry looks at Louis then and, almost imperceptibly, in a motion so small that Louis is sure he would have missed it if he wasn't so focused on looking for a sign, he nods.

In a smooth and simple movement, Louis leans over and kisses Harry, full on the mouth. It's so easy, it's so simple that it doesn't even seem surprising that it happens, just the next step in a familiar dance. The kiss ends and Louis pulls back, leaning up on one arm to look down at Harry curiously. Harry's smile hasn't changed, dopey and warm, though his cheeks are a bit pinker. There's a beat of silence, and then Harry rolls on his side, towards Louis, very calmly sliding one hand up Louis' chest, the other around the back of his head. 

They kiss again, hungrier this time but still syrup-slow from the weed and the night and love of lingering in it. Harry opens his mouth, the flick of his tongue just enough to part Louis' lips. Louis slides on the silky sleeping bags towards Harry, their hips jutting together in a knock and then a push. Harry slides his knee up between Louis' legs, nudging against his crotch as Louis' cock hardens at the touch. Louis gasps a little, deep in his throat, and Harry laughs against his mouth.

It's all touch, no talk, just responding in movement. It's like a whole fucking conversation just in the way Louis slides a hand over the ridges of Harry's hips and down the front of his jeans, as Harry ghosts his fingertips slowly down the ladder of Louis' spine to rest on the small of his back. Louis isn't sure what he'd say even if he could speak right now. It's like he's been hollowed out and then slowly filled up again with Harry; thinking about Harry and touching Harry and kissing him with this little whisper in the back of his head telling Louis to _remember_. Remember how he tastes (whiskey and resin and sugar) and how he smells (boyish and brackish with sweat) or how his stomach swoops when Harry shoves his hips against Louis', grinding against him.

Louis rolls over, crawls until he's on top of Harry. They pull away from the kiss with a smack, and Harry's lips are this crazy flushed rough-red, and his eyes glint with familiar wickedness. Louis sits up on Harry's hips, and Harry takes the moment to run his hands down Louis' stomach, pausing at the flies of his jeans until Louis nods. Harry pulls out the brass button and tugs the zip down, opening up his jeans and rolling the waist of Louis' briefs down a little. Louis leans down over Harry, to catch him in a sharp kiss, open mouths as Harry runs his tongue quickly along the edges of Louis' sharp-tipped teeth. 

Harry makes this keening little noise, wriggling up against Louis, and he's so obviously basking under the attention, his hands running over Louis' shoulders and arms like he's memorizing them. Harry breaks every kiss with this big and stupid grin, totally in love with the luck he's got. He nuzzles into every touch of his cheek like he's asking Louis to keep going, to keep on loving him, to never let it stop.

They keep kissing, Louis' body arched over Harry, as their twinned hands start tugging down their trousers, undressing each other with fumbling fingers. Harry's already fully hard, his cock arching up to his belly button as he lifts his hips off the ground to let Louis tug down his jeans. Louis gets his hand around Harry's dick, fever warm, and starts to jerk him off as Harry rolls the elastic of Louis' briefs over the head of his cock.

They're fucked up, their hands are rough and clumsy, jerking each other off frantically and boyishly and dumb. Louis lies down over Harry, grinding their cocks together, pressed between their tight stomachs, rutting against each other like teenagers on their first time. 

Harry laughs sometimes, when they aren't kissing, this chronic little chuckle that he can't get rid of, giddy when their lips aren't sealed together, the smack, the release, and then again together. Harry wraps his hands around their cocks, jerks them off together between their crushed bodies, and Louis moans. Moans against Harry's neck, burying his face in skin. Digging his teeth into collar. Tasting sweat. Trousers rolled halfway down his ass. Harry's knees are crooked on either side of Louis' hips, keeping them locked together. People pass by their tent, laughing and falling down, and Louis tries not to make too much noise. Harry arches his hips up against Louis so the friction glows, digging his cock against the flat plane of Harry's stomach. Trying to remember it all. Kissing him.

"I'm gonna –" Harry chokes out suddenly and quick. "Oh, fuck, I'm really –"

Louis holds Harry tighter. He wants Harry to come, he really does, fuck he wants to know that he did it, he made Harry come. Harry digs up into Louis' hips, hard cock, and he's so into it, his scrunched up eyes and hard-bitten lip and the way he says Louis' name like a curse word. Louis kisses Harry, tastes the want and his need for more. "Harry, fucking, come. Come on me." Louis keeps his mouth near Harry's, feels the gasp and warm breath on his cheek. "I wanna watch you, I wanna see you."

Harry clenches a hand in Louis' hair, like he's just trying to hold on, his rhythm building and building. And then he pushes up against Louis once more, and stays there like he's suspended, his last dig between their stomachs as he comes, sticky and warm between their navels, groaning out _fuck_ and then a lot of Louis' name. Harry comes, and he squeezes his eyes together, tugging Louis' hair and pulling him down, down for a liquid and melting kiss. As he starts to come undone under Louis, Harry opens his eyes, green and bright and so fucking in love, so fucking pleased and, fuck, it's what actually does it, pushes Louis over the edge. It's like a punch to the gut as Louis rides that last grind between them, coming over Harry's stomach and burying his face in the crook of Harry's neck as spots blur and wave and kaleidoscope in front of him.

They lay there as they come down, still chasing after their breath, shared come tacky between their stomachs. Louis can feel Harry playing with his hair, can feel Harry's body go slack and loose under his own. Louis' heart pounds in his ears like the ocean, and he's not sure if he can move, or if he really wants to ever again.

"Finally," Harry breathes out, the last little habitual chuckle, stoned and sated and young. He moves a little, digging in to find a comfortable position, and then he kisses the corner of Louis' mouth. "Finally," he says again, like it's all he needs to say.

It's silent again, and back to bodies, talking through touch. Slower this time, fucked out and exhausted, all of the booze and weed and sex hitting them at once and emptying them out. They clean up with one of Harry's dirty t-shirts, pulling their briefs back up and crawling back to their sleeping bags. Louis is suddenly aware of how cold it is in the tent, and before Louis has a chance to unzip his own bag, Harry throws him one of his sweaters. Louis smiles, and Harry shrugs one-shouldered.

They slip under their sleeping bags, unzipped and opened like blankets, and move just so; Harry finding a cradled little spot under Louis' arm, his hair a wild, dark splash over Louis' skin, Louis tucking one leg over Harry's and tangling their cold feet. They kiss for a bit, kissing that turns into sleepy nothing, just nuzzling really, just sharing the same breath and falling away all tucked together.

*

Louis opens his eyes, and immediately regrets it. The grey light of day is filtered dull pink in the tent, and Louis rubs his bleary eyes as the rest of his hangover crawls over like liquid smoke, gumming up first at the backs of his eyes and spreading out as his nerves and synapses go off with a long and steady hum of _fucking ow_. Louis' eyes feel like sandpaper, his mouth tastes like an ashtray, and his head is pounding in syncopation with his heart, pulsing against his temples and roaring in his ears. On one strangely proud and very immature level Louis thinks to himself, _now this is a proper hangover_.

Like everything else over the past few days, it's nostalgic and familiar. Louis has always been prone to head hangovers, never stomach ones. Where other people spend their mornings crawling to the toilet to be sick, Louis mostly just shut himself up in dark, silent rooms under a hundred blankets, willing himself to sink into the mattress and disappear to get away from the thud in his head like a military tattoo. But there's only hard ground here, one cold sleeping bag, one pillow, and then someone near them starts to play AC/DC far too loudly.

In that moment, death seems so very beautiful.

The morning scrapes by, stinging like knees grazed in gravel. Louis' feet are cold and wet with dew, and his discarded sleeping bag is damp and frigid as he pulls it back on and tries to go back to sleep. Louis can see Harry's bare shoulder blades as he curls towards the other side of the tent. The skin of Harry's back is veined with the imprint of the tent floor, dirt and mud dusting his ribs and spine, his sleeping bag having slid uselessly from him in the night. Like the last sacrifice of a dying soldier, Louis flings out an arm, just far enough to grab the corner of Harry's sleeping bag, throwing it back over Harry properly.

"Cheers," Harry croaks from his position, curled up against the far end of the tent. "I was going to do that, but I'm worried if I move I'll be sick."

"It feels like my head is trying to hatch," Louis says.

Harry laughs, and then hisses and groans. "Don't be funny. Please, please don't. It's like using my brain like a kettledrum."

"Stan always says that hangovers hurt as much as the party was grand," Louis says. "Big hangovers mean massive nights."

"Was last night massive?" Harry asks, keeping his voice as flat and small as he can, like he's trying to sneak it by his hangover.

"I remember most of it," Louis says carefully. He does remember it, but it's in a violent clash of colours and patterns, smoky lungs and burning liquor and arms laced over arms. Strangers with big smiles dancing next to him. Feeling dumb, and loving it too. Dark tent lit up by firelight. Calling Liam and wishing he were here. A girl sharing a hipflask of coconut rum kept under an old wedding garter belt. Stinking cigarillos with plastic white filters. Eating steaming chips and gravy lying on the cold grass. Ripping off his shirt, bruises blooming from elbows to the ribs. The huff of breath that Harry turned into Louis' name as he came. Oh, fuck, right, _right_. Harry. Harry losing a boot. The way Harry's fingers pinched the filter of a joint lifting it to Louis' lips. Harry's mouth, his red-blood mouth. Harry laughing against Louis' cheek in warm breath. Harry glowing under Louis' attention. Harry's wide eyes and their promise to keep saying yes. "What about you?"

"Of course," Harry says slowly. "You almost punched a man for me. We tried to dance together to Muse. I've got your teeth marks on my shoulder." 

Louis winces slightly, and it comes back in waves, tingling in pins and needles down the back of his neck. Sticky come. The way Harry delighted in flicking his tongue along the edge of Louis' teeth. Their fingers fighting together to get Harry's trousers down. Louis feels like there's a lot they need to talk about now, piecing things together for big rough questions and cancerous doubts, the kind of questions Louis spent a lot of time drinking instead of answering. "Yeah," Louis says instead. "It was pretty massive. Do it again tonight?"

Harry laughs, hisses, smiles. "Obviously."

Finally, after an hour spent lying curled up in place, Louis' bladder wins out and he drags himself up, crawling towards the flap in the tent to go out and piss.

"Lou?"

"Need a slash," Louis says.

"Don't die," Harry says as Louis unzips the tent. And then, in a way that sounds easy and mostly like an afterthought: "Last night though, what I said. You do know, right?" Harry stretches out to touch Louis where he can, just running his fingers over the muscle of Louis' calf, linking them for a moment. "You always know it, right?"

Louis stops, half in and half out of the tent. He exhales sharply, and his lips curl up at the corners despite himself. "I do know."

A pause. "So you'll get me a bottle of water then, yeah?"

Louis laughs, and it hurts his head, but he still laughs. "Fucking insufferable wanker."

"That's my boy."

*

They manage to buy some chips by noon. A slow and quiet trudge through the mud (Harry back to trainers, already caked with dirt), blinking dazedly at the pewter coin of a sun stuck between the clouds, Harry having to count out his change three times before he gets the numbers right.

They pick at their food sitting in their folding chairs, listening as the first few bands of the day start up their sets. Their chips go soggy and cold with malt vinegar, and they both lose interest.

"You know it works," Louis says after a half hour of throwing chips in the air for seagulls to catch mid-flight.

Harry groans. "I know. I'm working up to it."

"Hair of the dog what bit you," Louis says.

"Does it still work if the dog ripped off your head and used it for a chew toy?"

"Yes," Louis says. 

"But, I mean, even if I said no right now, you would make me," Harry says, his voice a little less raspy than this morning, his cheeks flush and his skin brighter from the chips and gallons of water. "I don't even have a choice." The way he says it is not entirely upset; in fact, he sounds almost eager.

"Oh," Louis says calmly. "I wouldn't mind. You could say no."

Harry pauses, frowns slightly, young and hurt. "That's not playing the game."

"You don't have to. It's fine," Louis says, shrugging sweetly. "Please yourself, mate."

"But – you can't just –" Harry's frown creases his forehead. "What are you doing?"

Louis just smiles at him. "Nothing."

Harry purses his lips together, pink and grumpy and slowly resigning himself. "You're going to make me fall on my own sword."

"Yes," Louis says. "Rather than stab you. It's – neater. You can say no, though. I solemnly swear, I will drop the subject if you say no. I will."

"I'm going to say no," Harry says, though Louis knows his heart isn't in it. "Pact or not. Even though I made up the pact. To say yes to you and to everything. Even though. I'm still going to say no."

"Good," Louis says. "It's your choice."

Harry looks down at his muddy trainers, and immediately Louis can see Harry smile despite himself, and his answer is as obvious as it ever was going to be. It's a simple kind of victory for Louis, mostly because the victory was always there, hovering beneath the surface, waiting to be cracked like the thin shield of ice on a puddle in November. It's not like the last few days have been an enormous turning point: Harry always said yes, he just hadn't noticed he did; Louis always wanted to kiss Harry, he just hadn't noticed he did. It's like carrying on with a toothache for too long, the pain so familiar it's much easier to ignore than yank out. 

The last few days have just been a little time in outer space, weightless and thoughtless and free, time to realise that saying _no_ is tiring and saying _yes_ is fine, saying yes is good, and maybe they ought to catch up for lost time. Louis feels weirdly let down, just then, watching as Harry resigns himself to the truth that was always there, let down that there was no big thunderclap of revelation, no running to Harry in the rain and confessing everything like they do in films. There is no _big_ for Louis, only a thousand tiny littles piling up on each other over the months. And instead of screaming _Stella_ in the streets, they just got drunk, and made out like they should have hundreds of times before last night, and woke up to realise that, yes, this is just the way things ought to be. 

Yeah.

Harry looks up at Louis and he slowly shakes his head, like he can't quite believe what he's gotten himself in. "Pour me a shot," Harry says, shrugging and leaning back in his chair with an expression that's almost satisfied: satisfied that he's given it up, and satisfied that he's given it to Louis. "Oh, Jesus Christ."

"Good, good, saying yes is always the right choice."

"Is it?"

Louis ducks into the tent and emerges with their half-empty bottle of vodka. Standing on top of his chair, he holds it in the air and yells, "My best mate thinks he can drink more than anyone else here. Who wants to take him up on that challenge?"

Harry curls up into a ball on his chair, but his shoulders are shaking with laughter.

*

A few shots and hours in and the heat of the liquor burns away what's left of their hangovers. Cheap vodka like an antiseptic, flaming into the marrow of their bones and cleaning the sludge away, leaving everything too-hot and sparking and dangerous again. Even Harry stops retching after the third one goes down.

They end up wandering through the stages, wayward with arms around shoulders, helium-light from the booze and the freedom. Louis has a water bottle filled with vodka and they take burning sips of it, chasing with handfuls of jelly babies.

They watch tattooed guys shred their way through sets, tear-up young bands still struggling for fame on side-stages, playing to small and hungover crowds. It's hard not to imagine another world, one like this, getting his start in some know-nothing punk band lugging his gear around the country in a VW Bus, and Louis wonders if that's a better way to do this thing. Earning it on small stages and no money, tearing himself up night after night and hoping enough fans will stay after the show and buy him beers he can't afford. Years of doing the ups and downs instead of a couple of crazy months.

"You think," Louis says, knocking his hip against Harry to get his attention. "You think those guys deserve it more than us?"

Harry watches the band play for a while, cocking his head to the side. "We worked really hard too."

"No, I know, but we never got – this part. The dirty motels and Little Chef at three in the morning part. The part that makes you feel like a musician, you know? Where people wouldn't call us, like, fucking manufactured or whatever. Where we, I don't know, earned our keep as a band."

"I guess not," Harry says, taking a mouthful of vodka and downing it with a grimace. "But we never would have, we couldn't have met that way. We did it the only way we could and still have our band. We did it the way we did so it could be us five all the way. Fuck that," Harry says, sounding solid and a little defiant, and Louis really loves when he swears. "We're not manufactured. They put us together but we stayed together. We wanted each other like crazy. Wouldn't trade bullshit like that for what we've got."

Louis raises an eyebrow and he can't believe Harry sometimes, can't believe there's anyone quite like him. Louis has often thought that, but after last night it feels a lot more important that there's no one like Harry, and that Louis has him. "Yeah," he says, lingering on the word, "I'm definitely going to get fucked up and suck you off tonight."

Harry splutters and laughs and his grin is huge and shocked, looking around quickly to see if anyone else heard that too. Funny, how easy that's getting.

*

The night unwinds a lot slower than the day before. Doing it twice in a row would be suicidal, so their highs come on more sluggish, just a few hits off a pipe from a couple of friendly guys with ratty dreadlocks in exchange for some pulls from the vodka. Shotgunning a few hits off of a woman in her forties wearing a rhinestone jean jacket as the sun starts to set, her lipgloss cinnamon and her laughter smoky.

Their half-drunk wanderings brings them to some people with day-glo paints, kids younger even than Harry, who welcome them into their circle like new chaos. 

With a smile like Harry knows exactly what Louis is up to, he pulls off his shirt, tucks it in his back pocket where it hangs like a flag, and throws himself into the mess fully, getting his fingers in the paint and smearing parallel lines over his chest in yellow and red. He shoots Louis a cheeky grin, and he slides his fingers along Louis' cheeks, running lines under his eyes like woad and warpaint. 

Louis pulls off his shirt too, and he dips his fingertips in blue and green, traces Harry's collar bones in dots. Louis uses his other hand to burn fierce slashes of red down his stomach, getting some paint on the lip of his briefs. Harry puts full handprints of electric yellow on Louis' chest, and then lines of blue on his shoulders, and then a smudge of pink around in his navel. Orange slap prints mark Harry's shoulder blades.

They're a child's fingerprint painting as they wander away from the kids, and coloured up and stoned it's easy forget who they are. Just noise, just teenagers, just a drop in the waving sea of the crowd. The paint dries on their skin and feels weird and tight, a shellac like hairspray on their taut stomachs and cheeks when they grin. Harry keeps tracing his fingers over the patterns and whorls on Louis' shoulder, over his skin, painted and bare. 

The Rise Against set is a burial of noise, but mostly they stay by the edges, letting it wash over them instead of diving in. Louis throws his head back and looks sightlessly to the sky, focusing instead on the morse code of Harry's hands on the ridge of his hips. They finish off the vodka together, the bottle marked with their rainbow fingers, and immediately lock together again, Harry digging a hand into Louis' back pocket where it stays. 

Instead of a hectic glow like last night, Louis feels warm and sated, letting most of his weight rest on Harry's shoulder. They don't let go of each other for the next two hours, crashing into every experience as twins. There's something about being here, especially after the perfect mess of yesterday, that just makes Louis want to share everything with Harry. Everything Louis sees, touches, hears, feels; he wants Harry to have the exact same moment, to go through the exact same things, to share the same stories when this is over so they can talk over each other in a race to finish each others' thoughts. Distantly, behind the buzz, Louis knows it's going to end soon and they'll have to go back to some kind of real life. He knows too well that nothing they'll do after this will have that same dirty, young, and fucked-up glory of tonight, so Louis wants to remember, and he wants to remember that Harry was there for all of it.

Painted up and loved down, Louis kisses the corner of Harry's mouth and he tastes good, damn good.

*

Louis' only half-drunk as they walk back to their tent. It feels like the first time they've broken apart in hours when Harry ducks out from under Louis' arm to unzip the door. Louis' side is strangely cold, and the paint that was there has been smudged and smeared into a blur by shared sweat, a mirror of the exact pattern on the same place on Harry's ribs.

Zipping the tent closed, they sit there on their knees, rocking back on their heels and looking at each other with grins less wild, more warm. Catching their breath, smiling at each other stupidly, waiting until the coiled spring of the air finally breaks and they let themselves fall into each other. Harry just sits there with his bare body long, his jeans so low on his hips, the billow of an inch of briefs above them, the paint caught on the thin trail of hair threaded from navel and below. It feels like taking something beautiful apart and Louis isn't sure where to start, how to break Harry down, how to make him pliant and raw like before. God, that he even gets to do it, that it's even happening.

"I'm not sure how to –" Louis begins, blinking and watching Harry's smile grow, his cheeks red and dimpled. 

"You're Louis fucking Tomlinson," Harry says, his voice as flat and even as a prairie. "You just jump on me like a twat."

Louis smiles, stupid and sincere enough that he has to look down at the floor, taking a deep breath before looking at Harry again. "I do, don't I?"

Harry goes down like he wants to, not putting up a fight as Louis jumps on top of him, Harry falling to his back and _oomph_ ing as he hits the hard ground. He's laughing when Louis kisses him, a vicious little kiss that's more bite than anything else, tugging on Harry's bottom lip and making it red and wet. Laughter turns to a whimper as Harry runs his hands down Louis' back to rest on the sides of his hips, fingers just testing the lip of his briefs.

"Never sucked anyone off," Louis says, between kisses, and he's really rather into hearing himself say that. It's not even that filthy, Louis just likes the idea of it, of sucking a boy off, of sucking Harry off like it's nothing, like it's just that thing they do. Louis has thought about the mechanics of it before, in an off-hand way, but never so real, never where he's drawing in the courage to be an actual honest-to-God cocksucker. He should put it on business cards after this. "S'hard?"

"Getting there," Harry says, leaning up as Louis pulls away a bit, nuzzling Louis' cheek, getting blue paint on the tip of his nose. 

"I meant is it difficult," Louis says, solidly punching Harry in the shoulder. "I know it's hard. I can feel it."

Harry laughs, lying back down to look up at Louis. "I have a feeling you'll be brilliant," Harry says, and he gets another punch in the shoulder for his trouble. "Just – do what you'd want me to do to you."

Louis smiles, a crooked smile in one corner of his mouth. "Yeah, all right."

"Nervous?"

Louis leans down to kiss Harry then. A lingering kiss, violent at first and then melting into something else. They tip their heads, just opening their mouths, the smell of paint and alcohol between them, and really just kiss. A proper kiss; slick, sweet, the kind that sends warm blood to fingertips and toes. It's the kind of kiss that reminds Louis of the hundreds of times they should have been doing this but weren't.

Louis starts to undo Harry's jeans, and Harry goes to help him but Louis plants a hand firmly on his chest, pushing him back down. Harry gives a little _oh_ and then properly lies back for it, looking up at the roof of the tent and smiling like a cat that got the cream. He lifts his hips up as Louis gets the flies open, and Louis tugs him down all in one. Harry's briefs catch on his hard cock and Louis uses his teeth to tug the elastic over the head of his dick and off.

Harry smells boyish and musky, like heat and soap and the last of his cologne. Louis wraps a hand around his cock and jerks him off slowly, easing out a rhythm, building into the last step of the dare. Harry looks down at him, raises his eyebrows once, and Louis shakes his head and laughs. 

Focusing his attention, Louis nods and just does it, goes down on Harry, taking the head of his cock in his mouth and then sliding down a little, seeing how much he can take at once. Louis can take a lot, he finds to a weird spark of pleasure, his lips wet and tight around the shaft of Harry's dick, almost down to the base. God, it feels good, this sudden hungry want to see Harry come just like this, to taste him, to actually fucking suck him off.

Ever so slightly, Harry lifts his hips, buries himself a bit deeper in Louis mouth, and Louis loves that, loves knowing how to get Harry to react with the flick of his tongue. After that first push, after going down as low as he can with his nose almost bumping Harry's hip, Louis starts to properly suck Harry off. They find the slow rhythm shared between them, dipping low on Harry's cock as Harry pushes up to meet him, and once they lock in together like that it's fucking magic.

Louis slicks his tongue up along the flat of Harry's cock, flicking at last against the underside of the head, and Harry's moan is so husky and raw that Louis does it again, and again. Going low on Harry's dick, and coming up, just the slight shear of teeth along his cock that makes Harry shiver, his thighs trembling slightly under Louis' hands, like electricity shooting in sparks down his body.

With fumbling fingers, Louis undoes his own trousers while still trying to keep the rhythm. He gets his cock out and he's already hard, totally untouched, just hard from sucking Harry off and the goddamn _noises_ Harry is making. Louis starts to jerk himself off, stroking in time to how he goes down on Harry's cock, feeling the clench of pleasure knotted in his stomach, urged on by every whimper and moan Harry breathes out.

"Could you, with your," Harry says, spreading his legs further apart and crooking his knees up, like he's trying to get a better grip on the earth. His voice is so heavy with want it's crazy, and even though it's Louis giving the blowjob Harry seems absolutely helpless, his body working on Louis' whims alone.

Louis knows what Harry wants and doesn't hesitate, pulls off Harry's cock long enough to suck his index finger, sliding it down to press against Harry's arse. Harry grunts out a quick _yeah_ and Louis pushes in carefully, first one knuckle, then the next, this low growl of pleasure from Harry as Louis pushes all the way in. He does it again, and faster, and Louis can feel all of Harry's muscles tense up under him as he goes down on Harry's cock again, as low as he can, his finger pushing in to the third knuckle, curling slightly. There's a shiver in his skin, Harry's breath going tighter and faster, and Louis knows Harry's so close, and he can't believe how much he wants Harry to come, this absolute need to be the one who does it best.

Another push, and another, and Harry pushes up into Louis' mouth fully, fucks into him, and Louis takes it. He can hear Harry say _fuck, fuck, yes, I'm, fuck_ , and Louis can barely hold himself together as Harry comes, shooting into Louis' mouth salty and bitter and hot. Everything freezes for a second; Louis fingering him, his lips around Harry's cock, as Harry comes into Louis' mouth and Louis swallows him, every pulse sticky on his tongue. Louis holds it there, until Harry is blown out and done, the last twitch of his cock in Louis' mouth, and he falls back like his strings have been cut.

"Here, c'mere," Harry says, like someone trying to wake themselves up from a deep sleep. He shakes his head, the thick afterglow still so heavy on his body, but he tugs at Louis' hair and summons him heedlessly. Louis kicks off his trousers and briefs and crawls halfway up Harry's torso. His mouth is still raw with the taste of Harry, and the awe of it all, but he does what he's told for once in his goddamn life, straddling Harry's chest, his dick still so fucking hard. 

Harry works fast, flawlessly. He jerks Louis off, one hand on his cock, and the other resting on his inner thigh. Harry strokes the skin there, teasing a spot Louis never knew he even had, a spot that makes everything tighten up inside him, muscles drawn and drawing out a harsh little grunt. Harry works a grip from shaft to head, twisting it right at the end, right at the most sensitive place, the hot of his palm drawing flares and novas behind Louis eyes, squeezed shut.

"Harry, I'm –"

"Lou," Harry murmurs.

Louis feels everything go sharp and hard and blind, and he comes over Harry's chest, shooting on Harry's throat and cheek and lips, pearl and wet in a pool in the hollows of his collar bone. The shock of it is like a punch in the stomach, and Louis' whole body jerks a bit, his knees shaking on the ground, his muscles tensing and releasing until he's hollow and exhausted. Louis straddles Harry's chest and he just wavers there, barely able to keep himself upright, swaying like some imaginary breeze is buffeting him back and forth. Opening his eyes seems almost impossible, squeezed shut so tight, but when he does Harry is there and grinning, his hands running gently over Louis' thighs.

"Fuck," Louis mutters, wiping the sweat from his face, looking at his hand smeared with four different colours of paint. "I look like a Picasso, don't I?"

Harry laughs, looks down at the come on his chest, wet with the paint, clean tracks of skin cleared out from the sweat and jizz. "Didn't think that one through proper."

They sit there in silence, passing one of Harry's flannels back and forth, getting most of the paint off their faces and the come from Harry's chest. Harry keeps laughing, the last whiff of weed curling through him as he lies back naked and long, his body a canvas of smeared pastels and skin tinted pink and green and blue from their useless clean up.

"I was right, by the way," Harry says, watching as Louis clears paint from the corner of his eyes. "You were amazing at it."

"Who knew, man," Louis says, tugging on his briefs (the waistband stained here and there with blue, orange) and flopping next to Harry.

"So," Harry says.

"Yep," Louis replies, next to him.

"Right, then," Harry says. "Saying yes."

"Exactly," Louis says, curling next to Harry and pulling their sleeping bags over them. "Yes."

"I love you," Harry says simply.

"Yes," Louis says, on the last syllable of a chuckle. "I love you, too."

"Yes, you do."

*

Louis doesn't remember ever making a decision one way or another, nor does he remember Harry saying anything about wanting to go, they just do. Somewhere towards the end of The Strokes the next day, jumping along with everyone else all sober and sweaty, they both reach some mutual conclusion and stop, finding each other in linked hands as they wander away from the crowd and the final Pulp set, just choosing as one to bugger off from the noise and crowd and go back to their site.

They strike their camp together, not saying much at all, just moving around each other with little smiles and lingering touches on backs, hips, chests. And, okay, punching too, but always very kindly. The tent doesn't fold as neatly as it opened, so they mostly shove it into its canvas bag, the skeleton of poles next, hoisting the lot over their shoulders as they start their trek back to the car.

They pass campfires and people drinking beer, waving goodbye to people they've never met, all of them like old army mates from the smoke and the liquor and the noise of Leeds Fest. Louis wants to say that leaving means giving up that teenage feeling, back to responsibility, but truth be told he still mostly feels like an idiot child who wants to ruin the world for fun. Maybe it's just being with Harry that does it.

Once they leave the main grounds, they find a way to load their bags on the right shoulders so they have a free hand, gripping each other tight, lacing fingers. It's sweet at first, but Louis doesn't really do sweet, not for long, and tries to see if he can squeeze his knuckles hard enough that Harry will let go. It takes an awful a lot of pain before Harry even makes a surly _ow_ , but he never gives up the game.

It's another kind of unspoken decision what to do next as they pile into their rented car (unharmed, except for some birdshit on the windscreen.) Their ticket back to London isn't until tomorrow afternoon, and since they've scarpered from Leeds, the destination for the night is already pretty much decided.

Louis sits with his feet up on the dashboard, his head against the window, just watching Harry drive. He drives like an old lady, like he's concentrating on the road with every fibre of his being, his pink tongue poking out and bitten between his teeth. His hand is huge on the gearshift, seamlessly skipping through second and third as they pull out towards the motorway, one last little nod into fourth and the taut tendons in his fingers go looser. 

Louis remembers a lot of times like these, finding little things Harry does that flood him with urgent love for no reason. The way he drums his fingers on the top of the microwave while he waits in front of the window for it to finish. How he always hums the same fucking No Doubt song when he washes dishes. How he can't use a spoon without once trying to hang it on his nose. And that's always been there, Louis has always felt those little deluges of affection, but after this weekend Louis feels a lot better about putting a name on them now. A neat little label, written in multicoloured fingerpaints.

"Mum's going to be happy with us coming back for the night," Louis says. "She'll love seeing you again."

"You don't mind?" Harry asks, and Louis decides it's out of politeness as he must know by now.

"It was so strange," Louis says, looking out the front window, hearing as his voice goes kind of dopey and calm. "I mean, I always knew my family liked you, but. You just. I'm always amazed at how easily you can fit into places with me. "

Harry smiles, but he keeps his eyes on the road. "Yeah?"

"I never thought anyone would have the – um, hah, patience to live with me, but you do. You fit right in there, somehow. And the band, obviously. And back home, I don't know, it was like you were always a part of it. Like there was a nice Harry shaped gap ready for you to come and fill."

Harry frowns, but not sadly. He even dares a look across to Louis. "Sincerely?"

Louis shrugs, and gives Harry's arm a gentle push, enough to make him scramble like they're about to veer off course. "Don't go on about it," Louis says, and Harry laughs.

It's getting on well towards midnight as they get into Doncaster. Harry's furrowed brow and lip-bitten smile is lit up in the 120 bpm tempo of the streetlamps flashing by, light and dark and light and dark. Oh, go on then, in the dying embers of the big Yes Parade, in the few hours of teenage stupidity Louis has left; he puts his hand over Harry's on the gearshift, running his thumb around the button of Harry's wrist.

*

Louis' mum greets them at the door in her robe and slippers. She hugs Louis, and then Harry. A neat little Harry shaped gap he fits in perfectly.

"Sorry there wasn't much warning," Louis says. "Again."

"Oh, shush, don't pretend to care," Jay says, putting a hand on the small of his back and ushering him in. "You too, Harry. You're always welcome, don't make a fuss."

The house is already asleep, so Harry and Louis tiptoe upstairs. Louis is exhausted but he wants a shower even more. He lets Harry take the first one, out of some sort of unusual over-tired kindness that he reminds Harry never to expect ever again.

While Harry showers, Louis does a tour of his old bedroom again. It feels different this time round; the unfinished life he had, those old aches of who he used to be, the sharp edge of those vodka labels seem somehow dulled. Louis smirks, and the feeling hasn't totally gone away, probably won't ever (jumpy, young, living for a chance to destroy himself a little bit) but it's like the shape of those anxious questions have changed somehow, like the sun hitting the same tangled mess of Louis' life and casting a whole different shadow. Louis lies back on his bed and groans, rubbing his hands over his face because Jesus, he really needs to leave the philosophical bullshit to Zayn.

Harry stands in his doorway, a towel around his waist, his hair all limp damp curls, plastered to his face. "Your turn."

Louis stands up, and as he passes Harry, they stop for a moment, just long enough to pull in a wet kiss that smells of shampoo and minty toothpaste and growing familiarity. It's enough to make Louis stop thinking, start smiling.

Louis showers for a long time, in water as hot as he can stand. It burns away what's left of the booze and weed and dirt and paint on him. It's nice and thoughtless too, just this sleepy kind of happiness as he wraps himself in towels and brushes his teeth in front of a foggy mirror and remembers there's a boy back in his room waiting for him.

Harry is lying facedown on his bed, under the blankets, when Louis returns. He doesn't much mind; if there's something he wants to say he'll just wake Harry up. Serves him right, really. Louis changes into a set of red and blue tartan pyjama pants, and as he settles the elastic waist around his hip, he hears his door creak open as his mum pokes her head in the room.

"All right, then?" Jay asks.

"All set," Louis says, stepping towards her to plant a goodnight kiss on her cheek.

Jay's glance flickers from Louis to Harry's sleeping form, so obviously naked under the blanket that's drawn up only to the small of his back. Her smile seems to ignite slightly, curving upwards at the corners a bit more, but she quickly turns her attention back to Louis and asks "Had fun?"

Louis sucks in his bottom lip, shaking his head slightly. Honestly. "Yeah, it was a good time."

"Well, good," she says, kissing his forehead one last time. "Tell Harry I said goodnight. Sweet dreams, Lou."

"You too, mum," Louis says, closing the door behind her.

Louis turns towards the bed and says, "mum says goodnight."

"Yeah, I heard," Harry says, rolling over in bed to lie flat on his back. "Sorry, I didn't want to interrupt."

"She gave you the once over," Louis says, crossing his arms over his chest. "Seems to have gotten an idea in her head."

"Has she," Harry says, trying to mock a sound of surprise but landing mostly around sleepy. "Whatever gave her that impression."

"Teenagers in me bed," Louis says. The banter dies down quickly, fizzing out into a careful silence. "So. Tomorrow we go back."

"Wait, hold on, I've been thinking about what to say about that, actually," Harry says, flipping a corner of the duvet open to give Louis a space to slip into bed. "Been rehearsing."

"Let's have it, then," Louis says sitting on the edge of the bed but not quite pulling himself in. 

Harry rolls on his side, propping his head up on a palm. "You see, I've always had this. I've got this giant place inside of me that wants – no, actually, it really really needs to be loved."

"I've noticed," Louis says, lifting an eyebrow. "That place is fucking massive, man."

"Shh," Harry says, but it makes him smile. "Like I said, I've got this – massive place inside me that needs to be loved. And, I don't know, Lou. You're just the first one who's managed to fill the whole damn thing."

Louis pauses on that. He wants to fucking grin, and wildly too, but he keeps himself in check. He has appearances to keep up. A smile does slip out though, on the breath of a laugh. "Fuck, I'm too tired and that was too great for me to even try to be sarcastic."

Harry grins, his cheeks dimpling, a strand of wet hair still clinging in a crescent moon on his forehead. "Does that mean I win?"

Louis isn't sure. It does kind of seem like it. He's never willing to give up that easily, but in face of the wall of things they're going to have to do, the weeks of work coming up like an obstacle course, losing just for tonight seems like the best way to go. "Fuck."

"Result," Harry says, lying back down on his side again, looking up at Louis. "Go on, have one last night. We don't have to go back until tomorrow. We can figure the rest of this later, tomorrow, somewhere out there," he says, gesturing out to the wilderness of other days. "What do you say?"

Louis crawls under his duvet, with its mingled smells of home and Harry, his pillow slightly damp from wet hair. He clutters up close to Harry, bumps his forehead to Harry's. "The fuck else am I supposed to say to something like that? I say, yes." And then, once more, because they did make a pact after all. "Fucking yes."

End.


End file.
